World swimming bans transgender women from competing

[Climber]

You still didn't answer the question. It's a yes or no. I asked "Should anyone who has any competitive advantage against other competitors be banned from competing in sports?"

I didn't ask whether some separation into different classes makes sense. On a sport by sport basis, those are fine if they are based on real world data and performance. I asked if any competitive advantage at all should be allowed in your version of sports. The fact that you said you think that competitors in sports should be "competing equally" seems to indicate that is you don't think there should be.

That is not a valid question, it's idiotic.

WTF do you think sports are?

That's like asking 'Do you think that anybody who breaks the law should be thrown into jail?'

 

[cfives]

We could have an honest conversation if you would answer my question.
... Next quote

You still didn't answer the question. It's a yes or no.

Is it really an honest conversation if you ask/demand for a binary yes/no answer to a loaded question, when either response supports your position from your perspective? When it comes to the rights of people who transitioned from one sex to the other, this sports body decision seems low on the totem pole of importance.

Not intending to be dismissive of trans women issues, but by the number of people affected, I'd be more concerned with inequality towards women in general. Not talking about the Roe v Wade overturn, but the societial value of work pay discrepancy by gender that still seems prevalant.

 

[Eldritch]

Is it really an honest conversation if you ask/demand for a binary yes/no answer to a loaded question, when either response supports your position from your perspective? When it comes to the rights of people who transitioned from one sex to the other, this sports body decision seems low on the totem pole of importance.

Not intending to be dismissive of trans women issues, but by the number of people affected, I'd be more concerned with inequality towards women in general. Not talking about the Roe v Wade overturn, but the societial value of work pay discrepancy by gender that still seems prevalant.

Kind of nothing to do with FINA Rules though, right?

 

[cfives]

Kind of nothing to do with FINA Rules though, right?

Sorry, yes, I assumed that this thread was a couched attempt to broach a social issue outside of the pol sink, so my reply should not have gone beyond, " I don't have an issue with the FINA rulling."

 

[ScarySpikes]

Sorry, yes, I assumed that this thread was a couched attempt to broach a social issue outside of the pol sink, so my reply should not have gone beyond, " I don't have an issue with the FINA rulling."

I would take that up with the guy that started the thread.

 

[Eldritch]

Sorry, yes, I assumed that this thread was a couched attempt to broach a social issue outside of the pol sink, so my reply should not have gone beyond, " I don't have an issue with the FINA rulling."

LOL, I mean, I think there probably is a bit of that tied into there, but swinging all the out to Women's Pay Gap is a pretty wide swing. Just saying.

 

[cfives]

I would take that up with the guy that started the thread.

Sure, but that does not answer the direct question that I asked you, if asking a loaded binary question that you have prepared responses to for either answer, promotes an honest conversation. I'm guessing that it doesn't.

 

[cfives]

LOL, I mean, I think there probably is a bit of that tied into there, but swinging all the out to Women's Pay Gap is a pretty wide swing. Just saying.

Trans woman are women IMO, so fighting for the obvious social inequality towards woman makes sense now that previous dudes are in the mix!

 

[Eldritch]

Trans woman are women IMO, so fighting for the obvious social inequality towards woman makes sense now that previous dudes are in the mix!

 

[ScarySpikes]

Sure, but that does not answer the direct question that I asked you, if asking a loaded binary question that you have prepared responses to for either answer, promotes an honest conversation. I'm guessing that it doesn't.

As opposed to him not answering any questions, lying about what I said, and quote mining scientific articles, ignoring the actual conclusions of the articles, to try to support his point.

I don't really see how it's a big deal, it's completely relevant to the conversation to understand how much variance is performance between different competitors he believes is acceptable.

 

[cfives]

As opposed to him not answering any questions, lying about what I said, and quote mining scientific articles, ignoring the actual conclusions of the articles, to try to support his point.

I don't really see how it's a big deal, it's completely relevant to the conversation to understand how much variance is performance between different competitors he believes is acceptable.

One only has ones actions over their own thoughts and actions, best to start their, IMO.

 

[msethhunter]

I'm not having to reach at all. You are running back to some meaningless phrase of a talking point because you know that you can't answer the question without undermining your argument.

If you say yes, that you believe no one should be able to have a competitive advantage, it basically destroys the concept of competitive sports completely You think of separating by hand size, foot size, arm length, leg length, height, and sex all at the same time would still not get you there. Every person would basically be competing only with themselves, because there are small competitive advantages and disadvantages.

If you say that you say no, that you believe that only beyond a certain degree of advantage or disadvantage, then, as the data shows, you are going to have to start banning those elite athletes way before you start banning trans people. A trans woman, if you only pay attention to the studies that show differences, ignoring data collection issues the authors acknowledge and ignoring other studies that contradict their findings and show no difference, You are looking at relatively minor differences, like 5-15% above an average cis woman, and only on some things, and it also comes with some disadvantages which you seem to skip over. If you look at top 10% performers among cis woman, they are like 25-30% above the average cis woman on those same comparisons. If you look at elite cis women in sports, the best of the best, we are talking about 50-60% higher performance over the average cis woman.

Also, there is no evidence that trans women maintain that 12% performance bump even if they train as hard or harder than cis women at the elite levels. We are really only looking at anecdotes here, there are only a handful of trans women that have gotten into high level sports, and probably only Lia Thomas could be seen as being at an elite level. Prior to transition, she was also at the elite level for in mens swimming, and after transition, she is not dominating the competition, she won one NCAA championship in the 500 Freestyle, but otherwise, 5th in the 200m freestyle, 8th out of 8 in the 100m freestyle finals, At the same event, Kate Douglass, a cis woman, dominated, with breaking 18 different NCAA records. Again, there aren't enough trans women in sports at that top level to have a scientific study on it, but certainly not the performance you would expect if trans women have an unfair advantage over cis women.

Again, if the advantage is being a male, go play with the males in a gender specific sport. That’s an unfair advantage. The science says it so, from your own admission, from the articles both you and I have quoted, and from the sanctioning bodies. Instead of going with that, you’re trying to turn it into “well that girl has this advantage over that other girl because she was born with (insert whatever here) so let’s ban that girl too!” Really? You’re a lot smarter than that, a lot smarter. You’re probably one of the brightest dudes that posts here. We’ve both posted articles that say “the 12% advantage is maintained beyond a year.” Leah beat the Olympic Silver medalist (2020 400m medley) by almost two seconds (1.75). That year, the times were 4:32.08 and 4:32.76. Leah ain’t that far off the world record, and her times since transition have only dropped in single digits percentages.

Look man, the science is either misleading, not finished, or supports neither side, so until it’s been studied more, if you’re born a man, and the sanctioning body says you can’t compete, then you can’t compete. More people support that POV than don’t. Those numbers are better than half, about a third who say yes, and a small percentage that say IDGAF.

Leah wasn’t winning prentransition. Post transition, she takes the championship. Nah, transitioning gave her no advantage.

And again, if it wasn’t an issue, we’d be seeing the same thing when women transition to men. But we’re not seeing that, are we.

My brother held records in CIF 110 High Hurdles in Highschool and had a full ride scholarship , but threw it away, and decided not to go to college (idiot). Should he be banned? His advantage was longer legs than average. Fuck it, BAN ASSAULT LEGS!

No trans women in women sports. Have some kids, look at the potential of it to impact your child’s life because of an UNFAIR advantage of being male, not an unfair advantage of being a better biological similar specimen with similar but more adept attributes.

Your knowledge of sports, and how a 3-5% advantage can have a dramatic impact on how one finishes, as shown in full light of Leah obliterating the competition when competing with women at the elite level, and just being an average elite level swimming prior, should be, and would be enough in any other situation. But because she’s trans, you’re choosing to die on that bill, and in typical fashion, you’ve dug in. You’re wrong here. Trans women athletes have an advantage in 90-95% of scenarios. That’s more than enough to say “Nope, you don’t get to compete against women.” Way more than enough.

I’m done.

 

[cfives]

Referencing a lowest cost denomitor

 

[msethhunter]

As opposed to him not answering any questions, lying about what I said, and quote mining scientific articles, ignoring the actual conclusions of the articles, to try to support his point.

I don't really see how it's a big deal, it's completely relevant to the conversation to understand how much variance is performance between different competitors he believes is acceptable.

Quote mining! Lying? Do you see what you wrote? Jesus fucken Christ. I haven’t lied about a fucken thing. It’s all in there. If you don’t like that the article you link has things in it that might be contrary to your opinion, THEN DON’T FUCKEN POST THEM!

Calling me a “liar for quote mining.”

 

[tzrider]

You guys seem to be starting with the assumption that HRT doesn't do that much, and trans women aren't actually women.

It seems to me you're making an assumption that medicine has the whole transition process so dialed in that the outcome is indistinguishable from a person born to that gender. It isn't and the unknowns are what vex sports governing bodies.

As far as I've been able to tell, there are no published studies on the performance disparity between trans women and cic-women. There is plenty of research but no depth of data that can quantify performance reliably enough to be confident the playing field is level.

A lot of detail in this article: https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-do-trans-athletes-have-an-advantage-in-elite-sport/a-58583988

While there don't seem to be any cases where a trans woman suddenly dominates a sport, there are results that show they place consistently higher in rankings than they had in their birth gender competitions. And it totally depends on the sport; combat sports and other hard contact sports should have more scrutiny that sports where nobody is going to get hurt.

 

[Eldritch]

Referencing a lowest cost denomitor

?

It seems to me you're making an assumption that medicine has the whole transition process so dialed in that the outcome is indistinguishable from a person born to that gender. It isn't and the unknowns are what vex sports governing bodies.

As far as I've been able to tell, there are no published studies on the performance disparity between trans women and cic-women. There is plenty of research but no depth of data that can quantify performance reliably enough to be confident the playing field is level.

A lot of detail in this article: https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-do-trans-athletes-have-an-advantage-in-elite-sport/a-58583988

While there don't seem to be any cases where a trans woman suddenly dominates a sport, there are results that show they place consistently higher in rankings than they had in their birth gender competitions. And it totally depends on the sport; combat sports and other hard contact sports should have more scrutiny that sports where nobody is going to get hurt.

While I agree and previously stated the lack of data represented a problem and so the FINA solution seems to be an ideal one in the effort to gather more useful information while providing opportunities to compete as best they are able, your statement about a lack of case is just not correct.

The Lia Thomas example is an obvious one and it is clearly the one that drew this need for a ruling from FINA. Prior to transitioning that person was a competitive, talented, but not particularly interesting swimmer. After transitioning and competing with women now, she broke all the Women's Records and has been DOMINATING.

 

[ScarySpikes]

It seems to me you're making an assumption that medicine has the whole transition process so dialed in that the outcome is indistinguishable from a person born to that gender. It isn't and the unknowns are what vex sports governing bodies.

As far as I've been able to tell, there are no published studies on the performance disparity between trans women and cic-women. There is plenty of research but no depth of data that can quantify performance reliably enough to be confident the playing field is level.

A lot of detail in this article: https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-do-trans-athletes-have-an-advantage-in-elite-sport/a-58583988

While there don't seem to be any cases where a trans woman suddenly dominates a sport, there are results that show they place consistently higher in rankings than they had in their birth gender competitions. And it totally depends on the sport; combat sports and other hard contact sports should have more scrutiny that sports where nobody is going to get hurt.

I do not make that assumption, this is not a very well studied area, the studies that do exist don't consistently show the same results on any of the specific areas they study. One study will show that (non athletic) trans women don't lose muscle as much, but a study looking at muscle strength measured by grip strength shows no difference between trans and cis women, and the army study your article mentions show that in the tests that have to do with muscle strength the most, pushups, sit-ups, trans and cis women show no difference. That study shows a modest benefit to running speed, but other studies have looked specifically at run speed, controlling better for training, and showed no difference in run speed. So, there isn't that much data, but the data that is available shows either no difference, or a very modest difference in performance, and that performance difference that cis women athletes show over average cis women is way bigger than the difference.

Limited data, the data that does exist does not indicate that trans women are going to dominate sports they get into, render the sports uncompetitive, or anything remotely close to that. I don't think that is a justification to say that some women are not allowed to compete in women's sports.

?

While I agree and previously stated the lack of data represented a problem and so the FINA solution seems to be an ideal one in the effort to gather more useful information while providing opportunities to compete as best they are able, your statement about a lack of case is just not correct.

The Lia Thomas example is an obvious one and it is clearly the one that drew this need for a ruling from FINA. Prior to transitioning that person was a competitive, talented, but not particularly interesting swimmer. After transitioning and competing with women now, she broke all the Women's Records and has been DOMINATING.

I guess you can decide if 6th best in the nation at 1000 Free when Lia Thomas competed in the men's division, prior to transitioning, is 'not particularly interesting' to you.
Her actual record is at the NCAA is a win in the 500 Free, 5th in the 200 free, 8th in the 100 free, no NCAA records broken, and her winning record in the 500 free is over 9 seconds behind the record holder Katie Ledecky in the 500 Free that she won.

Kate Douglass, at the same event, broke 18 NCAA records. She, a cis woman, dominated the event. FINA isn't looking to ban her.

 

[tzrider]

Kate Douglass, at the same event, broke 18 NCAA records. She, a cis woman, dominated the event. FINA isn't looking to ban her.

This gets back to the silly question you asked earlier: Should any person with a performance advantage be excluded?

My answer is that performance differences that result from a medical or chemical intervention should be scrutinized and sometimes corrected for (maybe banned). Other than that, "run what you brung."

 

[ScarySpikes]

This gets back to the silly question you asked earlier: Should any person with a performance advantage be excluded?

My answer is that performance differences that result from a medical or chemical intervention should be scrutinized and sometimes corrected for (maybe banned). Other than that, "run what you brung."

That's fair enough, though on the scrutiny, there is a big difference to me if the intervention we are talking about was done with the purpose of gaining an advantage in sports like doping, vs done for the purpose of medical need (transitioning falls into the later). There is already scrutiny though, ICO and other orgs have decided on 2 years on HRT and a limit on testosterone levels. That seems to work just fine.

 

[Eldritch]

I do not make that assumption, this is not a very well studied area, the studies that do exist don't...

...Kate Douglass, at the same event, broke 18 NCAA records. She, a cis woman, dominated the event. FINA isn't looking to ban her.

Why would they? I am assuming that Kate is subject to the same PED testing as everyone else.

By the very nature of their physical condition, using HRT means that transpeople require more scrutiny as hormone treatments are SPECIFICALLY one of the things PED testing looks for, just like when Lance Armstrong got all that scrutiny when he was taking hormones as part of his cancer treatments.

If you fuck with hormone treatments, you get more scrutiny in athletic competitions, full stop. No questions, no debates, this is reasonable and rational.

Aside from the obvious reasonable and rational cause for more scrutiny, no one is being banned. Banned was never on the table. FINA has been clear they intend to provide an opportunity to compete, they are just trying to work out the most responsible method to administer it in respect to the integrity of the sport, which is the only thing that really matters.